58. Do not talk of a rape [rope] to a chiel whose father washangit.--_Scotch._

59. Do not train boys to learning by force or harshness; but direct themto it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be the better able todiscover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius ofeach.--_Plato._

60. Education begins its work with the first breath of life.--_Jean Paul._

61. Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spokenwithin the hearing of little children tends towards the formation ofcharacter.--_Ballou._

For the collection of proverbs and sayings here given, the writeracknowledges his indebtedness to the numerous dictionaries of quotationsand proverbs, of which he has been able to avail himself.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CONCLUSION.

In these pages the "Child in Primitive Culture" has been considered inmany lands and among many peoples, and the great extent of theactivities of childhood among even the lowest races of men fullydemonstrated. That the child is as important to the savage, to thebarbarous peoples, as to the civilized, is evident from the vast amountof lore and deed of which he is the centre both in fact and in fiction.The broader view which anthropologists and psychologists are coming totake of the primitive races of man must bring with it a larger view ofthe primitive child. Still less than the earliest men, were theirchildren, mere animals; indeed, possibly, nay even probably, thechildren of primitive man, while their childhood lasts, are the equals,if not the superiors, of those of our own race in general intellectualcapacity. With the savage as with the European of to-day, the "child isfather of the man."

The primitive child, as language and folk-lore demonstrate, has beenweighed, measured, and tested physically and mentally by his elders,much as we ourselves are doing now, but in ruder fashion--there areprimitive anthropometric and psychological laboratories as proverb andfolk-speech abundantly testify, and examinations as harassing and assearching as any we know of to-day. Schools, nay primitive colleges,even, of the prophets, the shamans, and the _magi_, the race hashad in earlier days, and everywhere through the world the activities ofchildhood have been appealed to, and the race has wonderfully profitedby its wisdom, its _naivete_, its ingenuity, and its touch ofdivinity.

Upon, language, religion, society, and the arts the child has had alasting influence, both passive and active, unconscious, suggestive,creative. History, the stage, music, and song have been its debtors inall ages and among all peoples.

To the child language owes many of its peculiarities, and themultiplicity of languages perhaps their very existence. Religion has hadthe child long as its servant, and from the faith and confidence ofyouth and the undying mother-love have sprung the thought of immortalityand the Messiah-hope that greets us all over the globe. Even among themost primitive races, it is the children who are "of the Kingdom ofHeaven," and the "Fall of Man" is not from a fabled Garden of Eden, butfrom the glory of childhood into the stern realities of manhood. As asocial factor the child has been of vast importance; children have satupon thrones, have dictated the policies of Church and of State, andfrom them the wisest in the land have sought counsel and advice. Asoracles, priests, shamans, and _thaumaturgi_, children have had therespect and veneration of whole peoples, and they have often been thevery mouth-piece of deity, standing within the very gates of heaven. Ashero and adventurer, passing over into divinity, the child has exploredearth, sea, and sky, descending into nethermost hell to rescue the bonesof his father, and setting ajar the gates of Paradise, that the radiantglory may be seen of his mother on earth. Finally, as Christ sums up allthat is divine in men, so does the Christ-Child sum up all that is God-like in the child. The Man-Jesus stands at the head of mankind, theChild-Jesus is the first of the children of men. All the activities andcallings of the child, the wisdom, the beauty, the innocence ofchildhood find in folk-belief and folk-faith their highest, perfectexpression in the Babe of Bethlehem. True is it as ten thousand yearsago:--

"Before life's sweetest mystery still The heart in reverence kneels; The wonder of the primal birth The latest mother feels."

Motherhood and childhood have been the world's great teachers, and theprayer of all the race should be:--

"Let not (the) cultured years make less The childhood charm of tenderness."

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The Bibliography here given is intended to serve the double purpose ofenabling readers of this book to verify the statements made and thecitations from the numerous authorities referred to in the compilationof the work, with as little difficulty as possible, and of furnishing tosuch as may desire to carry on extended reading in any of the subjectstouched upon in the book a reasonable number of titles of the morerecent and valuable treatises dealing with such topics.

242. GOMME, ALICE B.: Children's Singing Games with the Tunes to whichthey are sung. Collected and edited by Alice B. Gomme. London and NewTork, 1894.

243. GOMME, ALICE B.: The International Games of England, Scotland, andIreland, with Tunes, Singing Rhymes, and Method of Playing according tothe variants extant and recorded in different parts of the Kingdom. Vol.I. According ... Nuts in May. London, 1894. xix, 453 pp. 8vo.

337. ROBERTSON, E. S.: The Children of the Poets. An Anthology fromEnglish and American Writers of Three Centuries. Edited withIntroduction by Eric S. Eobertson. London and Neweastle-on-Tyne, 1886.xxxviii, 273 pp. 12mo.